A viral claim that Sania Mirza donated a Hyderabad plot for mosque construction has been rejected by her father, Imran Mirza, who said the widely circulated image showing Sania with former India cricket captain Mohammad Azharuddin was generated by artificial intelligence. His clarification, reported on October 29, 2026, materially changes the story from an alleged charitable announcement to a verified misinformation case.
The posts claimed that Sania had offered vacant land near a shopping centre for a mosque after abandoning plans for a tennis training centre. They further alleged that she would personally fund the entire project and that Azharuddin had attended or led a foundation-stone ceremony. Those details were repeated across social media and in early reports without an authenticated announcement from Sania, her representatives or Azharuddin.
Imran Mirza’s statement directly contradicted the central claim. He said there was no mosque being built on the land where the Sania Mirza Tennis Academy had been constructed and described the reports as distorted and fake. He also specifically identified the photograph of Sania and Azharuddin as AI-generated. Sania subsequently reshared her father’s clarification on Instagram Stories, giving the denial a direct first-party connection to her public account.
The episode also shows why the image was persuasive: Sania and Azharuddin are connected through family, making the pairing appear plausible to viewers who encountered the picture without checking its origin. That contextual familiarity, however, does not verify the depicted event, and no confirmed foundation-stone announcement or construction record has emerged from either figure.
